Marineland wanted to maintain a warm and fuzzy identity that would attract visitors, as owner Marie Holer explains on the company’s web site:

We have a strong record of providing for the welfare of our animals and will continue to prioritize their health and wellbeing as a central focus of our mission. We are proud of the positive impact we’ve had on millions of visitors over the years and the positive contribution Marineland continues to play in inspiring people to care about the animals we share the planet with.^[9]

Marineland buys a lot of advertising – summertime replays of the jingle “Everybody loves Marineland” can be difficult to excise from one’s mind. Cummings called it an “enormous client” for Bell Media. Canadaland, a web-based publication, reported old-school competitor Bell Media’s directive two years later after obtaining the leaked email message, which had gone to employees at the three of seven radio stations Bell owned near Marineland:  610 CKTB in 105.7 EZ Rock in nearby St. Catharines and 102.9 K-Lite FM in Hamilton. (Canadaland later reported that CKTB had interviewed former Marineland trainers after Cummings. sent the memo.)

Such unseen direction and editing of public information to suit corporate clients is endemic to private sector media. Robert Hackett and Richard Gruneau’s The Missing News: Filters and Blind Spots in Canada’s Press details the pressures Canada’s news media was under at the turn of the millennium, a time when news media was primarily still print newspapers and broadcast and satellite television, terrestrial radio and movie borrowing. The introductory chapter, “Is Canada’s Press Censored?”, asked readers to remember that censorship is a politically loaded word.^[10] Unconscious biases and even laziness maybe be mistaken for censorship. The communications professors also warned that for an advanced understanding of media influence, “it is necessary to know more about the cultural, institutional and organizational dynamics that shape the news process.”^[11]

The authors claim that both governments and citizens in liberal democracies “accept the principle of certain limits on freedom of expression … that press freedom needs to be balanced against important social interests (such as military security or public decency), as well as individual rights, such as the right not to have your reputation unfairly damaged by false and libelous statements.”^[12] The most notable form of overt government regulation in Canada limiting news reporting, according to Hackett, is legal limits on court reporting, whereas the leading private sector restriction is media owners’ need to be economically viable.

Following the 2010 acquisition of the Asper family’s chain of newspapers by a group led by National Post CEO Paul Godfrey – making it Canada’s largest newspaper conglomerate by circulation – Postmedia Network Inc. reported 2011 advertising revenue of $675 million, almost triple circulation’s $234 million. For the year ended August 31, 2011, “Digital” was then contributing another $90 million to revenue and “Other” $20 million. One customer class paying three times as much as readership creates a strong rationale to shape editorial to maintain that business.

Reader-supported media can offer a different perspective, sometimes called “radical.” But alternative media may be specialist rather than radical, such as the weekly Novae Res Urbis, which since 1997 has reported on the municipal affairs of the City of Toronto with more detail and from a different perspective than possible at the print dailies. In Ottawa, staff-owned Blacklock’s Reporter breaks news about public accounts and Federal Court, including bills and regulations, reports and committees. The publication was named for pioneer publisher, war correspondent and former Ottawa press gallery president Thomas Hyland Blacklock. Its reporting criticizes all sitting governments no matter the party, following leads that could threaten mainstream journalism’s government advertising. However, reader-paid journalism can be held back by the size of its audience and subscription fees. (A Blackrock’s Reporter subscription cost $314 as of 2024, its only major revenue source). Relying on ad revenue can injure the publications’ independence.

Especially in Ottawa, the Government of Canada is another class of ad buyer with ultimate clout. During Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s administrations, the annual ad spend has totaled between $36 million and $59 million, a decline from the preceding Stephen Harper years.^[13] On the surface 2019/20 was a normal fiscal year with a $50 million budget reported in the federal Advertising Services Director’s annual report. But in 2018, Finance Minister Bill Moreau had announced $600 million in tax credits and incentives to be spent over five years through the repurposed Canada Periodical Fund. To create some distance between itself and distribution of the funds, the government named eight press associations to sit on an advisory panel.^[14] The funds were presented as a bailout but also criticized as a bribe. Either way, it is easy to suspect that handing out an average of $120 million a year on top of the traditional ad budget might result in some friendly coverage.

*Canadian Mockingbird is a newly available story on textbook censorship.